Sunday, April 19, 2015

ESPN Films 30 for 30 Vol 2: I Hate Christian Laettner

Laettner is viewed as one of the greatest college basketball players of all time. He is one of only four players (including teammates Greg Koubek and Brian Davis) to play in four consecutive Final Fours and the only player to ever start in all four Final Fours. Laettner still holds NCAA tournament records for most points scored: 407, most free throws made: 142, most free throw attempts: 167, and most games played: 23. He is especially known for his last-second, back-to-the-basket, turn-around, game-winning jump shot on March 28, 1992 in Duke's dramatic 104–103 overtime victory over Kentucky in the East regional final of the 1992 NCAA Tournament.

The plot of the documentary is built around looking at five characteristics: privilege; white; bully; greatness and looks. It looked at each of these characteristics separately and used clips from different timeframes to illustrate the attribute. The film kept jumping back and forth along the timeline. As a result, I had a little trouble tracking the sequence of the games over the course of Laettner's college career.